Hannah Thorogood is a permaculture farmer, designer, teacher, coordinator and organiser of local and national permaculture events. She has a BSc Environmental Studies from Manchester University, an MSc in Organic Farming from Scottish Agricultural College and completed the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design in 2005. Hannah’s life and work has been deeply connected with permaculture from being a young adult, and she has worked full time in Permaculture related work since 2004.

After living off grid and searching for the dream of their own land for a couple of years, in 2010 Hannah, and her family (including two young daughters) moved onto an 18 acre field in Lincolnshire. When the family first bought their land in 2010, the field was in a very poor state. It had been used for growing oil seed rape for decades, the lifeless soil had no organic matter present and was heavily dependent on chemicals.

* 3,000 trees planted in the first year with the aid of a grant from the Woodland Trust. The main functions of the woodland will be for timber, windbreaks and habitat.

* Turkeys are used to graze around the young trees

​* A managed grazing system - A flerd (Lincoln Longwool and Jacob sheep grazed with Lincoln Red cattle), followed by (mixed breed) chickens.

​* The construction of a timber framed, green roof classroom and field shelter. This exciting project has been a main focus for Spring 2016 with fantastic teams of volunteers working hard to ensure this beautiful construction, using natural building techniques is ready in time for the summer season of The Inkpot courses and events.

* A forest garden, containing what ever plants can be begged borrowed or stole, and seeing what thrives – this includes a diverse range of fruit trees.

* Meat from the sheep, cows and poultry plus eggs are sold locally, and with the help of social media.

* Wool from the sheep has been processed and spun at a local mill for the first time last year, and is now for sale

* Working Wednesdays (volunteer days) – really popular with a mix of folk, both from the local area and further away – routine jobs, or new projects are tackled.

* A family scale veggie garden, incorporating raised beds using tyres and using ducks for pest control.

* The creation of ponds and other connected water systems.

* People who attend courses and/or volunteer get to experience first hand, what a farm that uses permaculture design as its guidance, is like.

* Hannah and her family welcome and support live-in interns onto the farm, which is very much a 2 way beneficial connection and relationship

​﻿* Local people – The Inkpot has deliberately taken small, steady steps to engage with farming neighbours, so as to build up trust and resilience in having their quite radically different ways of farming accepted, into an area of England which is mainly farmed conventionally. In addition The Inkpot also has good links with the Parish Magazine, advertising produce and opportunities.

Other current ideas for future design elements and systems at The Inkpot include:-

* Selling the skins from the animals in the flerd

* Adding goats to the flerd, for dairy products

* Keyline ploughing and the use of biofertilisers are both RegenAG techniques that Hannah would love to use at The Inkpot. Although there is no capacity to do this at present, they are very much on the list for the future.